A Blessing for My Fellow Grievers
During the earliest weeks and months after my sister’s death, I wrote and wrote. I wrote to try and make sense of something senseless. I wrote because I didn’t know what else to do. And I wrote because I refused to keep my grief behind closed doors.
A month after my sister’s death, when my grief was so palpable that I could barely remember how to breathe, I shared the words below on Instagram. I wrote what I needed to hear. As we honor the Winter Solstice, and as we prepare to turn the page into another year, I offer these words to you. Perhaps they might hold something that you need to hear too.
May you remember that the only way forward is through, even when it hurts like hell.
May you let things be as bad as they really are and know that this means you’re going through a hard thing, not that something is wrong with you.
May you lean into your pain, grieving what once was, finding ways to honor and carry it with you.
May you have the courage to tell the truth about how hard and scary and painful life can be. May you be the first one to be brave and vulnerable. May you see what beautiful things can happen when you let others see inside.
May you trust that sometimes there is nothing you need to do except let things be exactly as they are, let yourself be exactly as you are, and know that things will change and soften as they will, when they will.
May you find a place to rest your weary head – a place not where you expect things to change, but where you can, for just a moment, find a tiny space to breathe.
May you let yourself be with your own feelings of powerlessness and uncertainty. May you know that you can trust yourself to find your way through.
May you remember that life is never either/or, that joy and pain and wonder and grief can all exist right alongside each other.
May you be a companion to yourself and treat yourself with exquisite kindness.
May you find the people willing to be with your pain, and the people who will stay. If you’re lucky enough to have just one person like that in your life, I hope you’ll let them love you.
On this Solstice, I light a candle for you, for all that you’ve lost, and for all that you still carry within you.
I wish you tiny moments of comfort wherever you can find them.
